turning of the tide
by One Foot Forward
Summary: If he only has one go at life he thinks that this one, while harsh and cruel and largely terrifying, isn't so bad. At least no one can say he hasn't used his time well.


**warning:** major character death to follow.

(sorry)

* * *

He's collected a lot of good story material over the years – if he wasn't already so fascinated with the histories of others he could probably rely on reliving his own experiences for the next decade or so, at the very least. His life has been packed full, spans the whole array of emotions, delves into the depths of misery only to rise time and time again in bright patches of hope, of the possibility of a future that doesn't involve restriction after restriction, compromises he tires of making almost as soon as the decision comes down. If he only has one go at life he thinks that this one, while harsh and cruel and largely terrifying, isn't so bad. At least no one can say he hasn't used his time well.

Well, Clarke could. But that's because it's Clarke, and she's always got some criticism or another quick on her tongue, lest his ego get too big.

It's funny how many of his stories involve her now. The truly great ones are the ones with a crescendo in the middle, at the end, the ones that are pumped full of blood and tragedy and sometimes tears. She's in most of those by association, codependency and co-leadership are basically the same things and regardless of the way the emotion swung, he and Clarke were always clear about how strongly they felt.

They're a pair, good or bad. Good and bad, actually, the two go hand in hand.

(they do; they go hand in hand)

.

.

"Remember the moose?" Monty asks.

Bellamy says, "_No_," almost as quickly as Raven laughs out a "_Yes_," which quickly sets them off on a _who can tell the story before the other strangles them _game, which Bellamy always loses because the little fuckers stopped taking his death-glares seriously about two years ago.

("One year and eight months ago, actually," Octavia corrects, "that's when Finn bopped you on the nose while you were yelling at him and you lost all your dignity.")

Raven swipes her flask of moonshine back once he settles down and adds, "Remember when Bellamy missed spearing the moose by like, a _mile_, and the thing stampeded over top of him?"

"Remember when he avoided the camp for almost a whole day because he had to be the big man and go 'track the fucker down before his reputation could be damaged'?" Jasper says.

Bellamy glowers. "Actually I don't remember saying that."

"Yeah, well, that's because it was part of your internal monologue." Finn's sitting in the corner and is only playing this game begrudgingly, but he continues, "And I was the one doing the tracking."

Jasper and Monty break into a fit of laughter, mostly alcohol-induced, and Raven snickers and takes a seat next to Finn. It's safe, now that Bellamy can't stop anything.

Well, he tries – swats the back of Jasper's head and says, "I got us food for a week you little shit."

They're still laughing, firelight harsh on the pale bruises of their skin – winter has barely peaked and it's late April. Monty manages to get out a, "And the look on Clarke's face when you stumbled back into camp, covered in bruises and blood – "

" – with this _huge _carcass on your back," Jasper giggles "and that, fuck, what was it you said – "

"'_A gift for your table, m'lady_'" Monty finishes, and then the two of them double over again in stitches.

"That was the first time I heard the word 'butt-face' used in an actual argument." Miller says before Bellamy has the chance to defend his ego.

"Same." Raven adds.

Finn cards a hand through his hair. "Also the first time I ever saw someone use a sutra needle as bargain chip."

He's standing close enough to the moron twins that all it takes is a lunge and a grab that he doesn't quite see coming and then Jasper is prodding at his chin. "Did that ever leave a scar?"

Bellamy growls and pushes him away. They used to fear him god damn it.

(Also, it totally _had_, not that he had ever admitted that to anyone other than Clarke herself, who had sniggered and smiled with her teeth and never once apologized.)

"Shut up." He says. They laugh.

Still, he lets them revel in it for a moment – _he_ revels in it for a moment, the smell of a fading campfire and the group's errant chuckles (she called them his little war-counsel, they were constantly scrapping for the metaphorical piece at the table and these were the confidants they'd chosen to help make the decisions about who to punch and who to stab in the back).

It's peaceful until – "Hey, remember the _goat_?"

.

.

She'd started sketching a few weeks into their trek, once Finn had found some more supplies in the town they'd stopped in, and once Clarke had gotten over the bitter feelings of resentment the offer had drudged up.

It was the only leniency she had ever justified for herself – after Mt. Weather and the ship blast-off she'd become harder, more ruthless and unyielding than before, and it had been understandable but also in a tiny way unbearable to watch.

Sure, okay, it had helped when they'd first escaped the valley, met up with the Ark survivors and challenged the authority they had always known. Rather than choose to join their ranks and settle in a new camp she had laughed and said _burnt that bridge_ in a humourless way and they'd left – because she was right, it was necessary, but the thing about decisions that need to be made is that they break people, cut you in two with a divide of _what if, _and so she started drawing again to keep the fissures at bay.

Only, well…the second time around her drawing was less of a secret and more of a rumour bordering on fact, since in order to set off on a side trip to get enough paper to cover a good part of their journey Finn had to actually _tell_ Bellamy what he planned on doing. And sure, he and Spacewalker had gotten a little closer after almost dying together, but that didn't mean Bellamy accepted all of his perfectionistic notions – he just knew better how to ignore them or how to deal with them in any other way than _fuck off you little shit_.

(Except he kept catching Clarke lost in a thought, lost in _dead, dead, dead_ or _Mt. fucking Weather_, so Bellamy carved a little group out of his already far-too-small family of misfits and sent them to get supplies.)

Once the fact that princess could actually _draw_, like genuine talent hidden in surgeon hands, all bets were off. Most of them hadn't had much of a chance to know what they looked like – ID's and the like on the Ark were reserved for adults and those with classification high enough to require it – and the greedy little fuckers jumped at the chance to see their own faces for the first time. Apparently surviving a fight-to-the-death and government capture was enough to erase most of the borders between Phoenix and Walden, and when one of the younger kids, Root, an eleven year old with nerves of steel, had asked her for a picture, it was fair game for everyone else.

Long story short, for about a month all Clarke ever did was sketch portraits, and while Bellamy would poke fun and quip about like, _what is your actual purpose here, I didn't break you out so that you could sit down on the job_, he brought dinner to wherever she had staked out her camp for the day, sat down with her and watched her put real-life images onto paper, a different kid every night curled at her feet.

(They only had so many survivors, and the whole process took less time than either of them liked, but she kept on drawing, updated them whenever one of the kids asked, and to this day the little scraps of paper still floated around camp, tucked into lockets they'd pilfered or sown into the lining of their jackets, a reminder that they were alive, they were existing in this little tiny pocket of time and space.)

.

.

He dreams in memories, is haunted by specific days and events and moments he can never change;

(_codas,_ he thinks,_ addendums and commentaries you can't keep straight, can't hold on to because they don't get to happen_):

"Your name could go down in history," she says, her eyes steady on the side of his face – it's in the later years of their time together, she's broaching twenty now and has learnt to balance horrors with an untimely sense of humour and levity.

He's used to this – her utter lack of segues first thing in the morning – so he doesn't turn to her. Or bother asking _what the fuck Clarke it's barely dawn_, because that's never worked. "I don't think any of us are going down in anything other than the most literal sense."

Clarke doesn't smile. "Gunfire, glory, shit like that?"

Bellamy does. "Yep."

She presses her lips together, he can see it out of the corner of his eye but resolutely looks forward, trying to force down the slop they call breakfast. She scoots closer to him. "No really. You've got the name and the history. You just need someone to tell your story."

"The name?"

"Bellamy's a pretty lofty one, don't you think?"

He never tells her that Bellamy was French in origin, meant _good_ and _fair_ and everything he wasn't but she sometimes was. "I don't think anyone is going to be telling our stories princess."

When he finally does shift, his feet turned slightly to the left as he glances down at her, her lips are turned up. He couldn't see that before.

"They will." She nods to the group slowly rising for another long day of traveling, "They're our legacy."

He wants to know where it's coming from, more desperately than he should, but also he knows better than to ask – Clarke is never as secretive as when someone asks her why she's giving hers away. He raises an eyebrow instead, a clear and unvoiced _and?_

She shrugs. "Just…we're going to settle one day, y'know? And these kids will have children of their own, who will build homes and have more kids and we're going to live and die here, on Earth, but what we've done is going to continue on. You're a part of history now."

"We could all die. That could be our legacy."

Clarke laughs. "Maybe."

"Or," he continues, unable to stop himself, "no one will remember us, and the Ark will take all the credit." It's what normally happens, he thinks, he fights for everything that isn't given to him, and he loses anyway.

"They'll remember us." She says softly. "They're ours, and they'll remember."

––he's angry now, thinking back on this moment, angry and bitter, that he never thought to ask her where she'd be in their legacy.

.

.

Jasper's the first one to get up in the morning – he usually is, since he's had the most experience with Monty's brews and also because somehow all of the near death experiences have made him a _rise and shine_ type of asshole, and by the time Bellamy cracks an eye open he's already rekindled the fire and started rounding up rations.

There's a blanket he doesn't recognize draped around him, tucked behind the fur-lined coat he'd traded for some Ark tech, and several bodies curled up by his boots. He sits up blearily and stares at his friends, Raven's coiled tight next to his hip and Miller lays rigid next to Finn, who's staring up at nothing. Octavia isn't anywhere to be seen, which probably means she's started waking up the rest of the camp, not that it's a big chore given how few of them there are, or how small their make-shift home is, bundled closely together to keep winter at bay.

"This yours?" He calls out, and Jasper perks up.

"You're awake." He tosses something at Bellamy, hard and quick. "Breakfast is ready."

Bellamy scrubs his face, set the food down next to him after a long moment of staring at it. When he turns back Jasper has moved a little closer to him, so Bellamy holds up the wool draped around him and frowns.

"It's mine," he confirms, and reaches forward to tuck it back around Bellamy's neck, "You looked cold."

"I don't need – "

"You do." Jasper cuts him off. "Besides, I wasn't using it."

Bellamy stares at him. "When did you get up?"

Jasper shrugs. "I dunno. Not sure I actually fell asleep."

Finn doesn't move, doesn't even twitch, but replies, "You did. Kept muttering about _peanuts_."

"_Right_. Yeah, well, remember when we had actual peanut butter? We were talking about it last night."

He does, dimly, but he has muggy flashes of Miller getting really impassioned about the debate of _which meat group was the grossest to eat_ (snakes had won), and it kind of overshadows Jasper's waxing nostalgia of the canned goods they'd found in a depo a few months back.

Jasper eyes his scowl with a wary glance. "Almost thought that this batch would be the one to finally do you in."

Bellamy groans – he's groggy and tired but not nauseous. "Yeah, no, 'fraid not."

"Shame."

Monty and Jasper had started a competition a few years back, around the time when they had first begun this nomadic-shit, spurred by Clarke loudly lamenting the fact that Bellamy never seemed hung over, no matter how much moonshine she straight-lined him. Monty had taken it as a slight on his abilities, if there was one thing he was going down as it was going to be an expert alcoholic (his words, not Bellamy's) and so had begun the anything-but-subtle game of betting on Bellamy's health, post-binge drinking.

Speaking of – "Where's your better half anyway?"

"Getting water." He scowls when Bellamy tries to get up again, but Raven's shuffled over and is now pinning him down. "There's nothing to worry about at the moment so just relax, alright?"

He hates it – the patronization. Especially since no one is giving two shits whether or not he knows it's happening.

But. He sort of feels how Finn currently looks: vacant, tired and unwilling to fix it. So, okay.

He closes his eyes and rests his head back on Raven's. A few minutes. Then he'll get up.

.

.

("What's your take on haircuts?"

"Pardon?"

"Haircuts. Good idea or bad?"

He shakes his head slowly, because, just _what_ – "Where's this coming from?"

"The ravishing creature in front of you." She gestures vaguely to herself, but she's more focused on scowling as Jameson walks too closely to her. The kids like to eavesdrop.

Plus, he's pretty sure she's aware that she's covered in enough blood and dirt to double for camouflage. Probably.

"I have no opinion on haircuts. I have more _important _opinions – "

He has her focus again, she's frowning. "I am aware of how highly you value yourself."

"I'm highly valued by all, actually."

Clarke scoffs. "Yes, yes, big man of the dirt pile."

They're _supposed_ to be sending out scouts to set up a safe zone, sorting out the guards – it's only been a few months of travelling and it feels like they go nowhere fast, and anyway the system is far from perfect is what he's saying – and yet she's talking about haircuts.

Probably means it's important. Ish. "Okay, right, haircuts. Why?"

"Because Rae asked me last night if having split bangs makes her look ugly and I think some of the other kids are making fun of her."

"They're _what_ – "

"Relax Bellamy," but she's smiling, "just uhm, how would you feel about haircuts. Like, you doing the hair cutting, specifically."

It clicks – unfortunately. "Gods, Octavia put you up to this, right?"

Now Clarke is grinning. "She may or may not have mentioned that you're a real whip when it comes to women's hairstyles."

"I gave her a bowl cut once, did she mention that?"

"It may have come up, possibly."

He eyes her suspiciously, because she's got the cat that ate the canary look on her face, and – "How many people already think I'm going to be cutting their hair tonight?"

"Five," she holds up her hands when he leans in a little bit closer, invades her space, "uhm, six if you count Octavia, but I think you can talk your way out of that one if you really want."

"_Princess_."

She shrugs. "Hey man, you should try to be more unlikeable. The kids insisted on it."

His eyes narrow. "That's a low blow."

She's unapologetic though. "Awesome. So, after dinner?"

He grumbles. Honestly, six months ago he was willing to hang someone up in cold blood for offending him, ready to wall himself up in order to feel invulnerable, to at least pretend, and –

_Fuck_. The kids. The _kids_.

He sighs. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."

She's all sunshine and rainbows then, and he glares at her and stomps away. Pretends to be more annoyed than he is, even though the camp is in a brilliant mood for the rest of the afternoon, and just. Whatever.

Fucking Clarke.)

.

.

It's like that – comes in pieces, a puzzle of person slowly forming, a Picasso that you squint at until it just, it clicks, and you're like _yes, okay, so that's why you got really upset when I said football was a dumb relic_. It's this way for everyone, because they were all on death row, with little hope for pardons, and they all have a back story fitting of people who were the last survivors in space for a world that rejects them at every turn, the type that comes out when you're cross-country-ing for years.

Like, how Bellamy is the first to realize whatever contraceptive shit the Ark had going on wears out, fritz's at the most inopportune moments, and suddenly he's giving prenatal classes with a group of followers he'll never stop seeing as children, all because he's the only one who's ever raised a baby.

Or that Raven eats first and scarfs her food down, she wasn't always guaranteed that back on the ship, but then she wanders around camp making sure that even the smallest, least scrappy of the joint gets their share – they've had to soothe more than one bruised ego after she has crushed it ruthlessly under the heel of her boot, you just don't take a second portion before the others have had theirs, you _don't_.

Finn needs the companionship of a relationship more than he needs air to breath, and once Raven makes it clear she's only willing to put up with him as a friend he's suddenly become the most obnoxious flirt in the whole tribe – but he'd lost his mother young and latched onto Raven just as quick, only knows the ins and outs of supporting another person, never supporting yourself on your own.

Jasper and Monty come exclusively as a set, always have and always will, the bonds of family are not strong in blood, are strong in secrets shared and torments spanned together, and even when they're apart they're always thinking about each other, talking about each other. Clarke was the one to start calling them _morons one and two_, twins of a different age, and they'd liked it so much it had kept.

(He already knows all of Octavia's story, even to the point where he understands her need to leave camp each night, to explore the nooks and crannies in the safe zone because maybe, just maybe, she'll find someone she's looking for.)

It isn't just those closest to him that he knows about though. By their second winter Bellamy's aware of who's done what, the crimes against humanity that had been deemed consequential enough to warrant floatation, but also who cries at night because of it. Which kids are the type to get angry rather than morose, who he has to take aside and teach how to hit where it hurts, to channel aggression into value, and who he has to send to Clarke because what they need is the type of comfort found in a mother's touch, a soothing word – even though he also knows how much she hates this, she hates her mother and has never really worked out that giant black hole in her past, hates how awkward the title fits into the list of _Who Is Clarke Griffin_.

(Rabid fan of every sport known to humanity –to the point where she had been teaching the kids the proper technique to tackle someone with injuring them, too much. Pilferer of already stolen goods. Shitty tracker. Fantastic skinner. Stoic. Unrepentant. Isolated. Support system.

Murderer and healer. Friend and foe. Aggravating, _nagging_, impossible to stop once she'd started. Stubborn, _shit_, so fucking stubborn, and opinionated. Smart. Ruthless.

Leader. Partner.

Missed.)

.

.

.

What he really remembers are the nights it was just the two of them, neither able to sleep, or maybe just neither of them wanting to sleep while the other was still awake. Solidarity and all that shit. If nothing else they were good at taking care of each other – at being lonely together.

The way Clarke would creep out once everyone else was safely tucked away, moving just slowly enough to invite Bellamy to follow, and they'd lean against a tree or a rock or sometimes, when there was nothing left to muddle the horizon, they'd just lay down on the ground and she'd twine her ankles around his and say nothing for hours. Or if Bellamy was the first to take off, the way she would give him a few minutes, sometimes more, sometimes less, and then trace his steps, walk up to him and link her arm through his, stare at the planet together.

They'd talk sometimes, when the silence was too much.

"Do you think we're destined to only leave death and brimstone in our footsteps?" She would ask, and Bellamy would chuckle because how else do you respond to that, _c'mon_, but then he would shake his head and try and point out the good. Like, it was harder for him, he was a realist, but he kind of loved the chaos, so he spent time showing her that it was okay to love it too.

She probably already knew that, she just had a harder time accepting it.

He would offer her a flask of something or another – they really did need to get the drinking thing under control, they were supposed to be respectable and shit – and would go, "What do you think we should do about Theo, he's been so out of it lately."

Or, "I think some of them have PTSD, maybe we should have group therapy or something – did you nick those psych books from Plainview?"

And she would grumble a little, then huff and say, "Yeah, of course, like I was going to leave _medical knowledge_ behind, c'mon Bellamy."

It was cute. Clarke was a lot of things, hard and fierce things that were necessary with their lifestyle, but the nights they spent together were the times when the softer side got to breath, the gentle chuckles and the smiles without any secret messages curled within. That's what he remembers.

.

.

.

They'd made a pact – they'd made lots of pacts, actually, but this one was the one that had stuck: _survival is more than just living, and family is never leaving anyone behind. _

It was a remnant of some old children's show, spurred by alcohol and the latest drive to escape the east coast, but they'd latched onto it with enough determination to survive the next week of travelling, so yeah, _ohana_ and shit. Plus Clarke was always the one going on about how they had to just make it through the next patch of land, the next stretch of _will we or won't we_ in regards to food and resources, and she needed the reminding that this was life and it wasn't given, they'd taken it by force of will, so they needed to stop and smell the roses.

("Shit, not _literally_, Bellamy, those might be poisonous or something."

"Shut the fuck up and just accept my flowers princess.")

So yeah. They'd made a pact and passed it around and it had become a thing, _their_ thing, their merry little disjointed band of murderers and slackers and general rule-breakers, and Bellamy took it pretty seriously. So much so that he would rather carry the dead weight on his back and tow them to the next check-point on Clarke's little beaten up map than risk abandoning another person.

And sure, all the travelling made it pretty difficult. Safety meant a years-long trip across a land mass so fucking wide it hurt to think about – when all you had known was a tiny little space ship divided into regions of permissible access, the horizon stretched across prairie land was a little too broad to take in all at once. And sometimes the winters stretched a little too long and they had to make camp, consider temporary treaties and trade agreements until they could be on their feet and moving again. It was hard thinking about the joy in the moment when you had to watch bloody troops march back into camp because you'd somehow fucked up a territory dispute.

But. They had managed.

She'd fallen ill sometime in what used to be New Mexico, but hadn't said anything until she'd seen a crisped up town sign for a place called Clifton. He'd noticed she had been sticking to the back edge of the conga line they travelled in, but had written it off as a quirk, because Clarke knew better than to push herself when her getting sick was worse than making them stop early to rest.

But then she hadn't gotten up one morning. Laid in the dirt and the open sky and coughed helplessly with sallow cheeks and a wan smile.

"I don't want to go into town Bellamy," she'd said "I don't want four walls being the last thing I see."

"You're acting ridiculous," his voice had been firm in the way that only panic made it, and she knew this because she reached helplessly for his hand, "you are, and we're going to drag you into town whether you like it or not and fix whatever is wrong with you and – "

"There's nothing to fix." She wheezed, her eyes rolling back for a moment. "There, _ugh_, there wasn't one then and there isn't one now."

Her fingers curled under his, he had one next to her hip and the other on her knee, as if he was a moment away from tossing her on his back and carrying her, kicking and screaming, except she was way too tired to do either of those things so for once he thought, for once he might make a journey in peace, and…

And then she had closed her eyes. And she'd never woken up.

.

.

They don't make it to the coast before winter hits, winter is so much more _random_ than it had been before the nukes and the end of the world and all that, so it comes unexpectedly sometimes and they have to bunker down a few weeks after leaving Clifton.

When Bellamy wakes up the second time Raven's rolled off of his hip, she's awake but she hasn't really moved. It's probably because her ankles are caught in Bellamy's, a fact which he fixes as soon as he notices, but he doesn't get up.

Neither does Raven.

The fire goes at all times, if possible – it's cold and miserable and really suits his mood most days so he doesn't complain, just chops a lot of wood with a bit more vigor than before. Raven had really bonded with Clarke, Clarke who had made sure she wouldn't die, Clarke who had helped her learn how to walk again after the Mt. Weather disaster of a medical treatment. The three of them were perhaps the most vicious of the war counsel, Miller too subservient, Finn too idealistic, Jasper and Monty too…happy-go-lucky. Octavia was always split down the middle, she looked too much to what the other side was feeling, what motivated them to attack and kill and conquer, but she loved her family too much to say anything either way.

He's brought back to the present by the feel of Raven's hand on his, her fingers sliding between his in a hopeless move of comfort. They don't have a lot to do when they're not moving, because they haven't made it to _home base _yet, but they can't go anywhere, so they just get food and make sure they aren't pissing anyone off by riding out the snow and ice with the tips of their fingers.

"She never got to see the ocean." He mutters, because it's all he's thought about since nodding off.

Raven's hand tightens on his.

"Yeah." She sighs. "I know."

.

.

.

(He loves her, loves Clarke, he knows, but it's muddled in the way he loves everyone in their band of disjointed family – loves them unapologetically, loves them for their faults and their passions. He loves her because she's the one that's been with him since the start of this fucked up journey, and he isn't sure if he'd ever feel this way if they'd met on the Ark.

But maybe that doesn't matter so much as the fact that he cares, he _cares_, and she's become a piece of him along the way, inextricably linked with the way the Earth turns each breath they take, with the way the moon rises in different aspects each night, a new face that is always the same underneath the pomp and circumstance of it all. He loves her.

He _loved _her, actually, because he's lost her. He's lost a lot in his life, but this is the one he promises not to recover from.)


End file.
